Public safety receives 'top priority' in Hernando

As city navigates tight budget, aldermen asked to OK hiring of 2 firefighters

With a pared payroll, Hernando is managing to maintain services four months into a tight city budget.

An item on this evening's agenda of the Mayor and Board of Aldermen meeting would authorize hiring two firefighters to replace a pair who departed, and that fits into the city's agenda of "public safety as the top priority," Mayor Chip Johnson said Monday. "But we're trying not to fill other positions that are vacated. We're getting as lean and efficient as we can get."

"We're not planning on filling the position Katie left behind," said Johnson, who met with Subia on municipal budget matters on Monday. "Other people will be pitching in to fill those bookkeeping duties." Even his executive assistant, Julie Harris, was getting trained, he said.

The city also recently lost a receptionist at the Police Department, and some laborers in the Parks and Recreation division, and won't be filling those positions, either.

"We're just spreading things out, and everybody's working harder, knowing these are hard times," the mayor said.

The city payroll is down from last year by at least eight employees, to about 115, including some part-time ambulance operators, Johnson said. He said the "subbing out" of recycling services in a new waste contract with Advance Disposal also would cut payroll costs.

But the downsized budget upholds fire and police needs: "Our total public safety budget is $5,626,744. That's 79 percent of our general fund budget and that speaks of how serious we are about fire and police," Johnson said. "I'd venture to say that's a higher percentage than any other city in DeSoto County."

Aldermen last August approved a $13.2 million budget for the 2011 fiscal year that started Oct. 1. The blueprint didn't call for a tax hike but cut the general fund by 17.99 percent and the utility fund by 22 percent.

"Right now, revenues are coming in like they are supposed to, and we're keeping a hold on expenses," Johnson said.

In December, the city received a loan of $1.25 million from Guaranty Bank for current expenses, to be repaid from expected tax revenues in March. City officials said it was a simple cash-flow situation, not a budget crisis.

Johnson said that while incoming residents and some home sales should boost city income this year, it largely would be offset by proportional increases in services.

"We expect to see some growth, but meanwhile, street lights have to be lit, roads need to be patched."

While the city may be holding its own, it may not be able to hold on to acceptable services without a tax increase, say some officials looking ahead to October and the start of fiscal 2012.

Alderman Andrew Miller said Monday he's impressed by staff and departmental efficiencies, "but you can only manage it so long. You can't keep losing employees and still maintain services, if we don't do something to raise the level of funding. That's just a fact of life."